Where Guy Gavriel Kay Sets a Few Stars in the Sky

Lord of Emperors by Guy Gavriel Kay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is another beautiful piece of fantasy writing by Guy Gavriel Kay.

Set in a sort-of Byzantium, this is the conclusion of the Sarantine Mosaic, his homage to Byzantium and the artists who created enduring mosaic masterpieces from colored tiles. The novel (both novels) has its share of exciting action, but Kay is a master of the small moment, the touching scene, which is what I love most in his books.

Like this moment, where a confident young boy is reunited with is father at the end of a long journey:

Shaski made a sound--a wail, a heart's cry--and ran to his father then, a small bundle of spent force, to be gathered and held. He began to weep, desperately, like the child he still was, despite everything else he was and would be.

This scene is not central to the story--just sweet, and well rendered.

Like this passage as well, from near the end (with slight spoilers, reader, but you'll get over it) when Crispin inspects a space with an artist's eye:

The chapel was at least four hun­dred years old, dating to the beginnings of the sanctioned worship of Jad in Rhodias. The light entering was soft and mild, falling cool as pale wine on stone.

Martinian, seeing his colleague's gaze move from surface to surface, tracking the fall of sunlight through the smeared and broken windows above (windows could be cleaned, panes replaced), began to look about for himself. And then, after a time, in a silence that aspired to simple hap­piness, he just watched Crispin as he turned and turned about.

Look for many such passages, filled with imagery and emotion, twined together.

Both novels (the previous, Sailing to Sarantium, and this one, Lord of Emperors) deal with political events and the interplay of multiple social forces in Sarantium, with a plot which connects the common people of this great city with soldiers, physicians, and the stars of the hippodrome, as well the emperor, empress, and other members of the court, and these disparate characters are presented in a way that is reminiscent, metaphorically, of an ambitious, city-spanning mosaic. Crispin himself is connected to many key figures, standing on the edge of the stories of more important people, and it's mostly his participation in events of historical import (in his world) that allows the reader to observe them, a commoner spying on the great--a fly on the emperor's wall.

I believe this works, for the most part, but I'll admit to losing the thread at some point and setting the book aside. For quite a while. When I came back to it a short time ago (having left the bookmark in its place, thankfully) I found a lot to enjoy, along with more patience for the pacing. So, while I can happily recommend the novel, scrupulous honesty requires me to do so with a tad less enthusiasm than usual.

★★★★ Fine novel, with gorgeous prose. And if the pacing, somewhat slower than some of his other books, did not perfectly suit me, I'm sure there are still many readers who will prefer it.

In the end, you feel the author's love for the original, the Byzantium of history, and those long-forgotten artists. This novel feels like a tribute to them, a window shaped for us in words:

"The heart cannot say, sometimes, but the hand and eye--if steady enough and clear enough--may shape a window for those who come after. Someone might look up one day, when all those awake or asleep in Sarantium tonight are long dead, and know that this woman was fair, and very greatly loved by the unknown man who placed her overhead, the way the ancient Trakesian gods were said to have set their mortal loves in the sky, as stars."

Greatly loved, for certain.

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